H.Taylor Fairey Aircraft since 1915

F.2

The first aircraft to be both designed and built by the Fairey Aviation Company was a twin-engined three-seat landplane ordered by the Admiralty. This has been generally described as a long-range fighter and general-purpose aircraft, but it could also have been developed as a bomber. It was not the first aircraft to be built by the company, which made a start with a sub-contract order for twelve Short Type 827 floatplanes. These, built in 1915-16 and tested at Hamble by Sydney Pickles, carried the serial numbers 8550-8561 and the Fairey constructor’s numbers F.4-15. Before the completion of the fighter a start had also been made on a contract for one hundred Sopwith 1 1/2-Strutters. A fair amount of information about the F.2, in the form in which it finally appeared and was flown, can be obtained from descriptions, photographs and drawings of the period, but not much is known with certainty about the earlier versions of the project, design work on which is believed to have been started in November 1915. Four serial numbers, 3702-3705, were allocated by the Admiralty for two versions. One, it has been recorded, was to have had a tractor and the other a pusher layout. Two were to have been powered by 200 hp engines produced by Brotherhood Ltd. Three schemes were worked on by Fairey: these were for 3702 (F.1), 3704 (F.2) and 3705 (F.3). The first and third had not got beyond the wing-detailing stage before a requirement for wing-folding was introduced and the designs were not proceeded with. The most interesting fact about these initial proposals is that at least one, F.2, was planned with tandem-mounted engines within the fuselage and driving outboard propellers through a chain-and-sprocket system. In the case of the F.2 the propellers were pushers and the wing-folding requirement meant that the layout had to be revised to provide a tractor arrangement. This may well have been less mechanically attractive and the buried-engines plan was later dropped in favour of a conventional design with two wing-mounted powerplants - 190 hp Rolls-Royce Falcon twelve-cylinder vee liquid-cooled engines driving tractor propellers. In this form the F.2 went ahead to the prototype stage. This one-and-only prototype, assembled in the wooden shed on the site where the company’s factory was to be completed 18 months later, may have been flown initially, probably in straight hops, from the adjoining field at Harlington. The first official flight was, however, made by Pickles from Northolt, where it had been reassembled, on 17 May, 1917. Admiralty interest in the project had by then waned and no further progress was made. The F.2 was a three-bay biplane with long upper-wing extensions braced from kingposts above the outer interplane struts, and with a substantial four-wheel ‘bedstead’ undercarriage to simplify landings at night and/or to lessen the chances of nosing-over on rough ground. The wings folded from a point outboard of the Falcon engines - which, cleverly enough, were arranged to drive ‘handed’, or opposite-rotating, propellers to eliminate torque reaction and thus reduce the tendency to swing. The single tailplane carried twin fins and rudders. Armament consisted of Lewis guns on Scarff rings for the forward and aft gunners; bombs could be carried on external racks. No record appears to remain of the requirements which the design of the F.2 was intended to meet. Large, relatively slow, multi-engined, multi-seat fighters had not proved, nor were to prove, suitable for a conventionally offensive role in air fighting, but the F.2 might well have had value for night attacks on Zeppelin raiders and, perhaps, for specialized deep-penetration operations. The Royal Naval Air Service was, from 3 September, 1914, until March 1916, wholly responsible for the air defence of Great Britain. The RNAS also played an important, but often forgotten, part in the war on the Western Front and pioneered what would now be known as strategic bombing. Span 77 ft (23-5 m); length 40 ft 6 in (12-3 m); height 13 ft 6 in (4.1 m); total wing area 814 sq ft (75-6 sq m). Loaded weight 4,880 lb (2,213 kg). Maximum speed at sea level 93 mph (150 km/h); landing speed 38 mph (61 km/h). Climb to 5,000 ft (1,524 m) 6 min. Endurance 3 hr 30 min.

H.King Armament of British Aircraft (Putnam)

Fairey

F.2. Although this twin-tractor biplane of 1916/17 has been called by the makers the Fairey Twin Bomber, it might more correctly be termed a heavy fighter, though it could doubtless carry bombs. A three-seater, it had Lewis guns in the nose and atop the fuselage aft of the wings. These were on Scarff ring-mountings, the rear one being somewhat recessed below the fuselage top-line. In the context of armament the F.2 had another association of interest, for the engines of one intended version (F.1?) were to have been products of the Brotherhood Engineering Company, which many years before had made the engines for the first Whitehead torpedoes.

Jane's All The World Aircraft 1919

The type F2 twin engine machine was one of the earliest of the large twin engine types built. It was designed in 1914, and was flying in 1916. It was actually the first twin engine machine fitted with folding wings. The following table gives the main particulars:

W.Green, G.Swanborough The Complete Book of Fighters

FAIREY F.2 UK

The first aircraft to be designed entirely by Fairey Aviation, the F2 was a massive twin-engined, three-seat, long-range fighter ordered by the Admiralty. Powered by two 190 hp Rolls-Royce Falcon 12-cylinder water-cooled engines, the F2 was a three-bay biplane with a four-wheel "bedstead" main undercarriage, the wings folding aft from a point outboard of the engines. Armament consisted of a 0.303-in (7,7-mm) Lewis machine gun on a Scarff ring in the extreme nose and a similar installation immediately aft of the wings. The sole prototype made its official first flight on 17 May 1917, but Admiralty interest in the F.2 had waned by then, and no further development was undertaken as no use had been found for the large, relatively slow, multi-engined, multi-seat fighter.

ANTE-DATING THE ENEMY. - The Fairey Aviation Co.'s Twin-engined Folding-wing Biplane. Designed by Mr. Ñ. R. Fairey in Dec., 1914; built in the summer of 1916; delivered in the autumn of 1916. It had a remarkably good performance.